Six Sigma process improvements and sourcing strategies following factory fire

This thesis addresses Six Sigma process improvements and the supplier management issues resulting from the shift to external suppliers in the aftermath of a fire. Originally, this thesis was to address a lean implementation in Raytheon's substrate fabrication area. It was intended to build on work done by Satish Krishnan, which focused on a lean implementation in a related area. However, a fire in Raytheon's El Segundo substrate area forced Raytheon to outsource substrate production and brought to the forefront a different set of challenging issues. The fire shut down production for 21 days, creating pressure to capture lost ground once operations resumed. The increased demand and burden on resources during the recovery uncovered inefficiencies in key processes. One of the areas that increased in importance following the fire was magnet assembly. The first half of this thesis (Chapter 3 through Chapter 6) applies Raytheon's Six Sigma framework to the magnet assembly process in an effort to reduce non-value added work and increase standardization and control. Six Sigma incorporates many of the principles of lean manufacturing, such as continuous improvement and the elimination of non-value added work.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Egan, Sarah (Sarah J.)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Simchi-Levi.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Civil and Environmental Engineering.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34841

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34841